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undocumented immigrants
Trump Spokesperson Affirms Day 1 Plans for Nation's 'Largest Mass Deportation Operation'
"As always, we will go to court to challenge illegal policies, but it is equally essential that the public push back, as it did with family separation," one rights advocate said.
Nov 07, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump is set to begin his promised mass deportation of undocumented immigrants as soon as he takes office on January 20, 2025, even as rights groups are mobilizing to stop him.
Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt toldFox News Wednesday morning that "the American people delivered a resounding victory for President Trump."
"It gives him a mandate to govern as he campaigned, to deliver on the promises that he made, which include, on Day 1, launching the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants that Kamala Harris has allowed into this country," Leavitt said.
"We have a simple message for President-elect Trump or his deputies if they decide to make good on their despicable plans: We will see you in court."
Trump has pledged to conduct the largest deportation in U.S. history, with running mate and now Vice President-elect JD Vance promising 1 million deportations each year. The plan would likely rely on mobilizing federal agencies, the military, diplomats, and Republican-led states while using federal funds to pressure uncooperative states and cities into complying.
The stocks of private prison companies like GEOGroup and Core Civic rose significantly after Trump's win, and private contractors had already been discussing ahead of the election how to build enough detention space to accommodate Trump's plans.
A study released by the American Immigration Council in October found that a massive, one-time deportation program of the estimated 13.3 million migrants in the country without legal status would cost the government at least $315 billion while a 1-million-a-year approach would cost $88 billion a year for a total of $967.9 billion. It would also shrink the nation's gross domestic product by between 4.2 and 6.8%, not to mention the massive human cost to immigrant families, as around 5.1 million children who are U.S. citizens live with an undocumented family member.
The council also warned that such a program would likely threaten the well-being of all immigrants and increase vigilantism and hate crimes.
"As bad as the first Trump administration was for immigrants, we anticipate it will be much worse this time and are particularly concerned about the use of the military to round up immigrants," Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who fought the first Trump administration on family separation and other policies, toldThe Washington Post. "As always, we will go to court to challenge illegal policies, but it is equally essential that the public push back, as it did with family separation."
Exit polls show that 56% of U.S. voters favor offering immigrants already in the U.S. a pathway to citizenship, while Data for Progress found that survey respondents did not favor deportation for 7 out of 9 categories of people who might be caught up in a mass deportation scheme.
The ACLU has urged cities and states to take steps to protect their undocumented residents ahead of January 20.
"They should prepare for mass deportations because those will wreak havoc on the communities," Noreen Shah, director of government affairs at the ACLU's equality division, toldNewsweek. "It will mean kids who go to school and their parents are gone and not there to pick them up at the end of the day."
In particular, legal groups are gearing up for Trump to potentially evoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which authorizes the country to deport noncitizens of a hostile nation. It has only been used three times, most recently to detain Japanese Americans during World War II.
"Many fear that a second Trump administration would seek to use this law to justify indefinite detention and remove people from the country swiftly and without judicial review," Shah told Reuters.
The Brennan Center for Justice has called on Congress to repeal the act.
"This law was shameful and dangerous back when it was created 200 years ago," the center's Marcelo Agudo wrote in October. "It's even more so today. It must be repealed or overturned."
Several other organizations pledged to continue defending immigrants and refugees after Trump declared victory.
"We have a simple message for President-elect Trump or his deputies if they decide to make good on their despicable plans: We will see you in court," Karen Tumlin, founder and director of Justice Action Center, said in a statement. "And, we have a message of love to immigrant communities, we see you, we are you, and we will stand with you."
Calling Trump's win "one of the most dangerous moments in our country's history, National Immigration Law Center president Kica Matos said the organization had led a "movement-wide effort to plan for this moment."
"Trump and his allies told us what he plans to do: mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, ending the right to public education for immigrant children, internment camps, and using the military to hunt down immigrants. We should take him at his word," Matos said.
She continued: "One thing is certain: we cannot and will not retreat. For more than 40 years, NILC has been steadfast in our fight to defend the rights of low-income immigrants and their loved ones. We successfully fought Donald Trump before, and we will do it again."
The American Immigrant Lawyers Association (AILA) pledged to continue working for its clients.
"If implemented, the anti-immigrant policies avowed by candidate Trump will inflict lasting damage to the American economy, communities, and character," AILA Executive Director Benjamin Johnson said in a statement. "AILA and its more than 16,000 members will continue to defend the Constitution and stand against laws and policies that violate due process, undermine civil rights, or denigrate the contributions of immigrants. Our future prosperity depends on not giving up. We must stand together and work towards a brighter future."
Refugees International also promised to continue with its "shared commitment to rights and refuge for people forced from their homes."
"Amid historic levels of global displacement, the incoming Trump administration plans to enact an anti-refugee, anti-asylum agenda that will endanger millions of people—both those threatened by crises overseas and those who have been welcomed as neighbors into communities across the United States," the group's president, Jeremy Konyndyk, said in a message to supporters. "Yet we hold on to hope, even as we are clear-eyed about the daunting struggles ahead."
Knowndyk added: "As we do under any presidential administration, we will work tirelessly with all of you to defend and advance the rights, protection, and well-being of all people forced to flee their homes."
United We Dream, the largest U.S. organization led by immigrant youth, committed to building the "largest pro-immigrant movement this country has ever seen."
"Immigrant young people of United We Dream declare ourselves hopeful and clear eyed about the fight ahead," said the group's executive director Greisa Martínez Rosas. "With Trump pledging to carry out the largest deportation effort in our country's history—ctivating the military to raid our communities, schools, hospitals, and more in order to round up our people into concentration camps—young, Black, brown, and queer leaders who have been at the vanguard of our movement and of creating meaningful change are ready move mountains to protect our communities."
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'Devastating Blow': Trump-Appointed Judge Halts Protections for Undocumented Spouses
One advocate called the ruling "a direct assault on the integrity of immigrant families and the principles of fairness and compassion that our nation should uphold."
Aug 27, 2024
Immigrant rights advocates said Monday that they were "deeply troubled" by Trump-appointed judge's ruling that brought the Biden administration's protections for undocumented spouses to a grinding halt, just a week after officials began taking applications from couples who wanted to take part in the Keeping Families Together program.
Siding with 16 Republican-led states that sued over the policy, Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued an administrative stay to stop immigration authorities from approving applications.
The judge said the court needed time to determine whether the Biden administration violated the law by introducing the policy without going through the legislative process. Barker said the stay would be in place for 14 days, but Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council said the judge signaled that applications may ultimately be halted until at least mid-October.
"This is obviously devastating for people who would have hoped to benefit from the program, and for their U.S. citizen spouses who were hoping that their loved one could get more permanent status," said Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the organization.
The Keeping Families Together program, introduced by President Joe Biden in June, is designed to allow undocumented immigrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border and later marry U.S. citizens to obtain a form of "parole" while they complete the green card process.
Usually, people who cross the southern border and marry American citizens are required to return to their home countries while their green card applications are adjudicated, separating them from their families for years.
Under Biden's program, spouses could receive work authorization while while they wait to obtain legal permanent residency, and eventually citizenship.
The program would apply only to undocumented immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for at least 10 years, and the Department of Homeland Security says the average beneficiary has been in the country for 23 years—but Republican officials led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed the policy would encourage people to cross the border illegally.
"This is a baseless, politically-motivated Republican lawsuit that only serves to rip families apart," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Tuesday.
The ACLU said the ruling "threatens the livelihood of immigrant children and families," and one undocumented immigrant who filed a motion to intervene in the case on Monday called the decision "heartbreaking" for the estimated 500,000 people who were eligible for the program.
"My wife and I were really depending on this so we could move on with our lives and plan our future," Foday Turay toldNBC News. Turay was brought to the U.S. from Sierra Leone as a child and now works as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. "It feels like a knife to the heart."
In a video posted on social media by the immigrant rights group FWD.us, Turay said that he "should not have to live in constant fear of being separated from my wife and my son, both of whom are U.S. citizens."
Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, said the 16 Republican-led states had filed "a politically-driven lawsuit that we believe will ultimately be defeated."
"Tonight's decision is deeply disappointing. This is an unsound and devastating blow to hundreds of thousands of American families across the country who are now thrown back into fear and uncertainty that their loved ones will be cruelly separated from them for years due to outdated immigration laws," said Schulte. "The Keeping Families Together Parole in Place program was crafted with the express purpose of supporting families who have built their lives in this country for an average of a quarter century. By barring its implementation after the program is already functional, the court has chosen to side with those who seek to sow fear and division rather than uphold the principles of justice and family unity."
Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the lawsuit and ruling were attacks on a program that took "a vital step toward rectifying the inequities faced by these families, who often live in the shadows despite their deep ties to the United States."
"This federal program offers a crucial opportunity for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens to regularize their status, enabling them to contribute more fully to their communities and live without the constant fear of separation," said Jozef. "This legal action is a direct assault on the integrity of immigrant families and the principles of fairness and compassion that our nation should uphold."
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'Method to His Madness': Sanders Warns Trump Is Setting Stage for Election Denial
"What Trump is doing is laying the groundwork for rejecting the election results if he loses," the U.S. senator said.
Aug 13, 2024
Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont warned Tuesday that former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee, is laying the groundwork for another round of election denial if he loses to Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Taking aim at Trump's false claim that a photo showing thousands of people waiting to greet Harris and her Democratic running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at a Michigan airport is a fake generated by artificial intelligence, Sanders said in a statement that "Donald Trump may be crazy, but he's not stupid."
"When he claims that 'nobody' showed up at a 10,000-person Harris-Walz rally in Michigan that was livestreamed and widely covered by the media, that it was all AI, and that Democrats cheat all of the time, there is a method to his madness," the senator continued.
"Clearly, and dangerously, what Trump is doing is laying the groundwork for rejecting the election results if he loses," Sanders argued. "If you can convince your supporters that thousands of people who attended a televised rally do not exist, it will not be hard to convince them that the election returns in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and elsewhere are 'fake' and 'fraudulent.'"
"This is what destroying faith in institutions is about. This is what undermining democracy is about. This is what fascism is about," he added. "This is why we must do everything we can to see that Trump is defeated."
Trump infamously tried to overturn the results of his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden, an effort that culminated in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection and resulted in a historic second impeachment by the then-Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and a slew of federal and state felony charges in two separate election interference cases.
As his polling lead evaporates amid surging liberal enthusiasm over the Harris-Walz ticket, Trump has reverted to his oft-repeated 2020 claim that if he loses, it will be due to "cheating."
Trump, his running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and many Republican officials have recently ramped up attacks on undocumented immigrants. Although the myth of the "illegal immigrant voters" has been widely debunked—including by right-wing groups—Republicans and others including billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who interviewed Trump on his social media platform X Monday evening, have been amplifying false claims about undocumented voters affecting the outcome of the election.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—who led the legal fight to overturn the 2020 election results—also recently accused undocumented immigrants of attempting to "disrupt our elections."
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)—one of just eight senators who refused to certify Biden's 2020 Electoral College victory—said in July: "I traveled to the future to an imaginary world where actually Joe Biden got reelected... In my dream I met the ghost of Biden's future... It was easy for Democrats to rig the elections; they simply allowed all the noncitizens to vote."
On Monday, the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) published a report revealing that 35 county officials around the country who were involved in efforts to subvert the 2020 election are still in positions to do so again.
"I think there's almost no question that this is going to happen," CREW president Noah Bookbinder said of another attempt to overturn the election. "And it seems to be happening in a way this year that is more systematic than it has been in the past. So that's deeply, deeply concerning."
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